George Politis wrote:
 
+ it's part of the game.  The most notable occurrence, which got me to write
+ this, happened tonight at the RPI-Vermont game.  Following one of the
+ Vermont goals, Askew of RPI crosschecked #10 Perrin (sp?) of Vermont, if
+ you could call it a crosscheck.  From where I was sitting it didn't look
+ bad at all.  Askew got a 5 minute major, and after around a 3 minute delay,
+ play began.  Roughly 2 minutes later, Perrin was back out, with his
+ dynamic-duo twin #8 St. Louis (sp?), playing up a storm.  Now was this
+ just a case of the Referee being harsher to a player checking a "star"
+ player or what?  I would just like to get some other opinions on this
+ topic, and I don't mean to take anything away from Vermont, they played a
+ great game (who couldn't against the Engineers tonight??? :) )
 
  I saw that game on TV and saw the replay many times.  In my opinion,
Kelly Askew should have been thrown out of the game immediately, even
if Perrin got up and danced a jig right afterward.  There is
absolutely no reason that a player should cross check another player
while he is celebrating having scored a goal.  Perrin was already
skating away from the goal area and turning up ice when he was
blind-sided by Askew.  Before Perrin even finished sliding (very hard)
into the boards, the referee was signaling the cross check.  And by
the manner in which he was signaling it, I doubt that he was going to
call anything less than 5 minutes regardless of the injury.
 
  And, just so you know... I very seriously doubt that Perrin was even
conscious when he hit the boards.  He went down like a rock, there was
no dive, nor even anything resembling a dive.  No one purposely slides
into the boards the way he did... as that alone could have cost him
a major knee injury.  The cross check was right to the side of the
jaw, and could very easily have knocked him senseless, which is what I
think happened.
 
  Just to put it in perspective, this hit was just as blatantly
undisciplined as that which Dale Hunter of the Capitals inflicted on
Benoit (sp?) Hogue of the Islanders (who was injured as a result)
during the playoffs two years ago that resulted in a *20 game*
suspension in the NHL.  And, as we all know, they let a lot more rough
stuff go in the NHL than the ECAC.
 
adam
ps. There were two or three other hits by RPI players on Vermont
players immediately following goals which looked like frustration
hits, but this was the only one which took place long after the puck
had gone in the net and thus merited a penalty.